


Love, if thy tresses be so dark/how dark those hidden eyes must be

by Roshwen



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Also Kissing, And the boys are very very soft, Angst, Cassandra is excited, Ends with tooth-rotting fluff, Eve is baffled, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, In which Ezekiel is Sleeping Beauty and Jake is Prince Philip, Jenkins is bemused, M/M, Not kept secret any longer, Romance, Secret Relationship, Sleeping Beauty Elements, lots and lots of kissing, starts with angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 18:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16897995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: ‘Oh jesus,’ Jake groans.Jenkins hums. ‘I must agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly, Mr. Stone. Although the situation might not be as dire as you might fear, but it still might be quite problematic. You see, fairy tales have gone with the times. The ancient True Love’s Kiss is found to be outdated and is no longer widely accepted as a cure-all for magical afflictions. Instead most now settle for a, well. It does not translate well into human language, I’m afraid, but I think a kiss of ‘true romantic intent’ might be apt enough.’‘Great,’ Eve says, her sarcasm sounding shrill in the quiet. ‘So all we have to do is find someone who’s harboring romantic feelings for Jones. Piece of cake!’Jenkins hums again. Cassandra shakes her head, looking close to tears. And Jake studiously avoids looking at any of them.Or: Jake and Ezekiel have, somehow, managed to keep their budding relationship a secret from the others in the Library. But then Ezekiel pricks himself on a cleverly disguised sleeping spindle and falls into the deepest sleep, leaving Jake to panic and then explain things to everybody. Sort of.





	Love, if thy tresses be so dark/how dark those hidden eyes must be

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the poem Sleeping Beauty by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It seemed... apt.

If there is one thing that Jacob Stone has always known, it’s that life is fucking unfair.

Life is unfair: it will take away your mother and give you a drunken fuckwad for a father instead. It will take your brother and send him to Afghanistan, never to return again. It will give you an IQ of 190 and then put you in the one place on earth where no one gives a shit. It will finally get you to a Library, the one Library you’ve always dreamed about even if you didn’t know it existed, and then almost immediately yank it out from under you (and yes, it will also give it back after a year or so. But that’s not the point).

The point is, life is unfair. But as Jake slowly makes his way down the Annex stairway, on legs that suddenly feel like they’re made of lead, down to where Eve and Cassandra have just carried the pale and motionless body of Ezekiel Jones in through the Back Door, he can’t help but feel that this time, life has really gone too far.

He hadn’t even noticed the three of them going out; it must have been a small case, only requiring those who had nothing else to do at the moment. And they can’t have been away for long, because he had just seen Ezekiel an hour ago, when he brought him a cup of coffee and a kiss in one of the many empty offices the Annex seemed to possess. One hour ago, Ezekiel had grinned at him and cracked a joke about two different types of hot stuff walking through the door, and he’d been warm and solid and alive in Jake’s arms.

Now Eve is gently laying him down on the floor, while Cassandra holds his head and his eyes are closed and Jake can’t see if he’s breathing or not and he’s still wearing that stupid, _stupid_ Anthill Inside t-shirt Jake got him as a joke… and once again, Jake feels the world slip away from under him so he has to sit down heavily on the bottom step of the stairs.

‘What happened?’ he asks, his voice a hoarse crack because _this was not how it was supposed to go_. ‘What… Cassie, what happened?’

Cassandra doesn’t reply. Instead she keeps her eyes on Ezekiel’s face, biting her lip and placing two trembling fingers against his throat. She closes her eyes and Jake holds his breath for what seems like a hundred years until Cassandra lets out a soft ‘oh thank God’.

The world shifts again, but back into place this time. Still, Jake has to clutch at the railing of the stairs to keep from imploding right then and there as Cassandra opens her eyes again. Completely oblivious to the mushroom cloud of relief that is rising up inside of Jake, she turns to Eve. ‘Eve, go get Jenkins. He’ll know what to do with magically induced comas. Jake, can you get his legs? We’d better get him somewhere more comfortable, there’s a reading nook just behind those book cases.’

_Magically induced comas._ Once Jake has convinced his knees to start cooperating again and gets up to carry Ezekiel _not dead, just in coma, not dead, just in coma_ over to the reading nook Cassandra has pointed out, he cannot shake the thought that maybe, this time, life has not really been unfair. But it sure has the worst and most unsettling sense of humor.

\---

_And it all started out so well two months ago, with a late night case that had both Jake and Ezekiel too buzzed with adrenaline to go home and sleep, but too exhausted to do anything useful while staying at the Annex._

_‘Jones, it’s 1am. Step away from the globe and keep your hands where I can see ‘em, because you’re_ not _gonna get busted for burgling again. Baird’s not gonna bail you out for the third time in three weeks, you know.’_

_‘Wasn’t gonna_ burgle _anything, mate,’ Ezekiel drawled, even though he did take a step back from the Back Door. ‘But if you’re worried, why don’t you come with me? Make sure I stay on the right path and everything.’_

_‘Might be too late for that,’ Jake muttered, earning him an eye roll from Ezekiel. ‘Funny, cowboy. Very, very funny. Now, are you coming or not?’_

_The globe spun, the Back Door lit up and Jake, faced with the choice of sitting by himself in a darkened Annex with only the unabridged diary of Samuel Pepys for company or adventure in the unknown with his favorite punk by his side, resigned himself to the inevitable. ‘Where are we going?’_

_‘See for yourself,’ Ezekiel said after they had stumbled outside, onto a sunlit street. They were standing in front of a nice, stately building, 17 th century if Jake had to guess, and large and opulent enough to classify as a minor palace. Then he caught the golden lettering running along the façade and he almost burst out laughing. ‘Jones, don’t tell me you would voluntarily go to the _Mauritshuis _.’_

_Ezekiel laughed. ‘Don’t worry, mate. I’m not here for the art. Well,’ he shrugged, ‘not in the way you’d be, anyway. Paintings are pretty, but I’m more interested in the security around them. Gotta keep my game up, you know. Gotta keep myself sharp.’_

_In a way, Jake could not even be mad. He tried to hold his glare for all of two seconds before he huffed a laugh as well and shook his head. ‘Sure. Alright. Fine. Whatever, can we go in now? ‘Cause you know Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring is in there, right?’_

_‘Oh, I do,’ Ezekiel grinned. ‘Believe me, cowboy. I know this collection better than you do.’_

_Now Jake glared. ‘You wanna bet?’_

_\---_

_In the end, Jake did not get to see much of The Girl with a Pearl Earring, because Ezekiel decided to kiss him right in front of it. Jake didn’t even really see it coming: he was about to start on his explanation of Vermeer’s mastery of light and how the painting wasn’t a portrait but a_ tronie _, an figment (pigment, ha ha ha) of the artist’s imagination, when there was a dark head blocking the view, a hand drawing him close and soft, chapped lips meeting his._

_Until now, Jake had not thought there were many things that could surpass the feeling of getting to see a Vermeer with his own eyes. Until he felt the solid weight of Ezekiel Jones pressing up against him, felt one hand digging into his hair to pull him even closer, until he could smell expensive shampoo and taste warmth and excitement with a hint of double pepperoni and he had to admit that this feeling? Was infinitely better than anything any Dutch Master had ever produced._

_‘You know,’ he muttered after they finally broke apart and right before one of the security guards got close enough to kick them out, ‘if you wanted a kiss, you didn’t have to drag me all the way to The Hague for it. You could’ve just told me.’_

_Ezekiel smiled, a soft smile that Jake hadn’t seen all that often but that he definitely wanted to see more of. ‘Thought this way’d be more fun, cowboy.’_

_And for once, while they apologized to the guard and then booked it out of the museum and back to the Annex as fast as they could, Jake had to admit that his punk had a point._

\---

‘A sleeping spindle,’ Jenkins sighs, rolling an innocuous looking silver earring between a gloved finger and thumb. ‘Disguised as an earring. Clever. Very, very clever.’

‘Very evil,’ Cassandra mutters darkly. ‘Very, very evil.’

‘So he was gonna use them on his girlfriend?’ Jake asks. Although he is barely even paying attention, his focus for the most part still on Ezekiel. Who is by now lying on the weathered leather couch in the reading nook, head propped up on a pillow and looking for all the world like he is just taking a very deep nap. ‘What the hell kind of good would that do him?’

‘It was going to be _romantic,’_ Cassandra says, her nose wrinkling in disgust. ‘He was going to give them to her and she would put them in and then she’d fall asleep, but he’d be there to wake her up again. With a kiss. Like in a fairytale. That’s about as far as he got and then Baird punched him.’

‘Jesus,’ Jake groans, scrunching his eyes shut and hoping, not for the first time, that there would be a special place in hell reserved for frat boys who had a very, _very_ skewed view of high romance. Then something else registers and he opens his eyes again, looking at Cassandra while mild panic starts to dawn. ‘Wait. Did you say a kiss?’

Cassandra nods. She is biting her lip again, looking at the dark hair spreading over the pillow with wide, worried eyes. ‘That’s what the guy said. He’d wake her up with a kiss.’

‘Oh jesus,’ Jake groans again.

Jenkins hums. ‘I must agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly, Mr. Stone. Although the situation might not be _as_ dire as you might fear, but it still might be quite problematic. You see, fairy tales have gone with the times. The ancient True Love’s Kiss is found to be outdated and is no longer widely accepted as a cure-all for magical afflictions. Instead most now settle for a, well. It does not translate well into human language, I’m afraid, but I think a kiss of ‘true romantic intent’ might be apt enough.’

‘Great,’ Eve says, her sarcasm sounding shrill in the quiet. ‘So all we have to do is find someone who’s harboring romantic feelings for Jones. Piece of cake!’

Jenkins hums again. Cassandra shakes her head, looking close to tears. And Jake studiously avoids looking at any of them.

\---

_‘Jones,’ Jake said, voice low so he did not break the peaceful quiet of the bedroom too much. The air above his blanket was cold, but he himself was warm and comfortable, floating in the dreamy haze that came just after waking up. Sunlight was already slanting in through a gap in the curtains and his alarm clock proclaimed it just past 8am, but that didn’t matter. Jake could happily stay here for the rest of the day, as long as the starfish that had attached itself to his torso and which occasionally went by the name of Ezekiel Jones stayed with him as well. ‘Jones, can I ask you something?’_

_‘Hmmrphf,’ was the eloquent reply. Jake huffed a quiet laugh and turned his head so he could press a kiss to the mop of black hair that was the only part of Ezekiel currently visible. The rest of it was either buried under the comforter or mushed into the crook of Jake’s neck, which made Jake laugh again as something inside his gut clenched with the brand-new knowledge that Ezekiel Jones, master thief, was also the world’s most vicious cuddler._

_When nothing else seemed to be forthcoming, Jake wrapped an arm around Ezekiel’s shoulders and let his hand wander, stroking a warm path up and down his back. Calloused fingers started sliding over smooth skin as he pressed another kiss into Ezekiel’s hair, patiently waiting until he woke up completely. It didn’t take long: after a couple of minutes, Ezekiel let out another sleepy groan, turning halfway so he could peel his face free of Jake’s neck. ‘Alright, alright. I’m awake. What’s up?’_

_Jake couldn’t help it. The sight of Ezekiel, sleep rumpled and bleary-eyed but smiling up at him without a trace of his usual ‘Look at me I’m awesome’ bullshit made something clench and then loosen inside of him, so Jake had to stop and kiss him first before he did or said anything else. Ezekiel hummed against him, warm and pliant and soft and_ his _and Jake stopped, broke off the kiss before he let himself get carried away. ‘Hey,’ he murmured. ‘Good morning.’_

_‘Morning to you too, cowboy,’ Ezekiel said, grinning wide. ‘And if that’s your question, the answer’s yes. Anything more complicated, I’m gonna need some coffee first.’_

_‘It’s not complicated,’ Jake promised, shifting to accommodate Ezekiel wriggling closer again. ‘It’s just. Well. Can we maybe… not tell the others? About this?’_

_He could practically hear it, the dissonant chord that threatened to disrupt this otherwise perfect moment. Ezekiel drew back, still smiling but with the hint of a frown on his brow. ‘You want me to be your dirty little secret, cowboy?’ he asked, and by now Jake knew him well enough to hear the bitter tone beneath the lightheartedness. ‘Sure. If that’s what you want, it’s fine with me.’_

_‘That’s not it,’ Jake said, because it_ wasn’t _. It really really wasn’t. ‘Jones, promise. That’s not… that’s not it. But, well, do you remember how you almost had a panic attack last night because, and I quote, ‘_ this is not gonna be just a shag, now, is it, cowboy _’?’_

_Ezekiel made a face. ‘Thanks for reminding me, mate. Not exactly my proudest moment.’_

_The bitter tone stung, but Jake recognized it for the defense mechanism it was. ‘You were right,’ he said softly, and watched as Ezekiel’s eyes grew from narrow and suspicious to wide and almost shocked. ‘Say what now?’_

_‘You were right,’ Jake said again. ‘This… last night wasn’t just a shag. And you didn’t drag me all the way to The Hague for a kiss and a quick fuck, but Jones.’ He paused, almost smiling in relief as he saw the lightness come back into Ezekiel’s face. ‘Do you… I mean. You and I, we’re not exactly the textbook example of stable long term partners now, are we? So, did you think about… did you think about where we’d go from here?’_

_He half and half expected Ezekiel to give him a sultry look and make a crack about having some ideas, but instead he stayed quiet. He flopped on to his back with a sigh, scrubbing his eyes, and gazed up at the ceiling with a furrowed brow for a long moment before turning to his side again with a bashful grin. ‘Gotta be honest with you, Stone. Never thought I’d even get this far.’_

_Jake grinned back. ‘Yeah, neither did I. So.’ Now it was his turn to shift closer, pressing a kiss to Ezekiel’s cheek and then, for good measure, one on that sweet spot where his jaw met his neck. The sweet spot he had discovered last night and which was already marked with a bright purple hickey to prove it. ‘So, until we figure things out. Until we know what we’re doin’ and where we’re goin’ and how we’re gonna get there, I think it’s best to keep all of this just between us. Unless you want Jenkins or Baird to come and give us advice about how to handle… whatever this is going to be… in the workplace?’_

_Ezekiel stiffened and then relaxed in a full-body shudder that almost lifted him right off the bed. ‘_ God _no.’_

_‘That’s what I thought,’ Jake said, smiling as Ezekiel melted back against him. ‘And now, about that other question…’_

_Ezekiel frowned. ‘What other question, cow… Oh! Ah, yes, definitely still a yes.’_

\---

And they’ve managed it, too. That’s the surprising thing. For working in such close quarters with each other, and with some of the most intelligent and perceptive people on the planet, they have managed to keep their… relationship? Coworkers-with-benefits-situation? … under wraps. Jake is pretty sure even Jenkins doesn’t know, and until now he always thought that there was nothing going on in the Annex that Jenkins did not find out sooner or later. But they’re all standing here, around the couch where Ezekiel is lying for dead, with Jenkins looking just as grim as Eve and Cassandra so it’s safe to assume that he _doesn’t_ know.

Which is going to make this whole thing so much fucking worse.

‘Romantic intent,’ Eve says softly. ‘Okay. Anyone wants to have a crack at Jones’ phone? See if there might be anyone in there that could be willing to give it a shot?’

‘Won’t work,’ Jake says. His voice is surprisingly steady, although he is glad the lighting in the reading nook is dim so they won’t be able to see his face too clearly. ‘Knowing him, he’s got it encrypted seven ways to Sunday and if you enter the wrong passcode once, it’ll probably blow up in your face.’

Plus if by some miracle Eve or Cassandra got into Ezekiel’s phone, they’d see the text messages Jake has been sending him. Which is _not_ going to happen, even if Jake has to carry that phone to Mount Doom and throw it into the pit himself.

Eve mutters something uncharitable towards master thieves with more tech skills than they should have, but Jake doesn’t listen. Instead he looks towards Cassandra, who hasn’t taken her eyes off Ezekiel since the moment they put him down on that couch.

He looks towards Cassandra and then the thinks about how Ezekiel has been the first to welcome her back into the Library after her little Serpent Brotherhood mishap, even when Jake took his sweet time harboring his resentment. He remembers Ezekiel coining the term ‘brain grape’ and Cassandra looking offended, but also strangely relieved, for some reason. And also, don’t think he hasn’t noticed the little trophy for mathemagics that sits proudly at the corner of her desk, and he knows exactly where that came from.

And Jake does not want to ask¸ _really_ does not want to ask and he wants to hear the answer even less, but he has to. And if the answer’s not what he wants to hear, well. Then they’d have to figure it out afterwards.

It’s worked for them so far.

‘Cassie.’

Cassandra looks up. Sees the question Jake can’t get out of his throat and gives him a sad little smile. ‘Won’t work,’ she says, once again oblivious to Jake’s relief. ‘Uhm. I mean, it’s not that I don’t… I don’t love him because I do, I really really do but…’

She stops, her voice getting thick and Jake looks away. Cassandra swallows and continues, turning to Jenkins: ‘It really has to be romantic?’

Jenkins nods. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Cillian. But in that regard, I am afraid the fairytales have _not_ gone with the times.’

‘Then it won’t work,’ Cassandra says weakly, looking at the ground. ‘Not… not with me. But. There might be someone else?’

The ground beneath Jake’s feet starts shifting again and he closes his eyes, bracing himself for whatever Cassandra is going to say next. He can feel Eve stiffen in surprise next to him, and he hears Jenkins baffled hum but he can’t really focus, pushing it to the background because _here we go._

Of course Ezekiel told her. Not that Ezekiel was a blabbermouth who couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it, but he _did_ share important stuff with important people, and Cassandra was definitely important. Also Jake has a strong suspicion that, even though Ezekiel agreed to keep their whatever-it-was a secret, he wasn’t too happy about it. It made sense he’d have told Cassandra and then sworn her to secrecy under pain of death.

‘There might be someone else,’ Cassandra says, still not looking at Jake. ‘He… he told me. Or at least, he told me _something_ was going on with _someone_ after I’d caught him studying the guide to the Prado in Madrid and he said he wasn’t going to steal anything but he wanted to take someone there? And then I asked if it was someone special and he, he got all flustered but he looked so _happy_ that I couldn’t even be mad at him for not telling me who it was.’

There’s something in Jake’s eye. And in his throat. He blinks, even scrunches his eyes shut for a moment before he looks back at Cassandra. Thankfully she has the complete attention of both Eve and Jenkins, so nobody notices how Jake’s self-control is slipping further and further away.

‘Whoever they are,’ Cassandra continues, ‘they must be pretty amazing. I’ve never… I’ve never seen him as happy as when he told me and he said it was all very new and he was kinda scared and he was pretty sure they both were, actually, but he still really hoped they’d figure it out somehow.’ She smiles, reaches out to brush a strand of hair out of Ezekiel’s face. Jake follows the movement with his eyes, entranced and barely breathing for fear he might implode with the wave of want and love and guilt that’s rising up inside of him.

‘But he didn’t say who it was?’ Eve asks. She is frowning but her eyes are suspiciously shiny and Jake thinks he might have heard a sniffle from her general direction while Cassandra was talking.

Cassandra shakes her head. ‘No. He said he’d promised not to, not until things were a bit more stable between… between them. But,’ she smiles, ‘he said that once the ban was lifted, I’d be the first to hear about it.’

There’s a bit of Ezekiel’s hair that’s standing upright, defying gravity and logic. His chest is rising and falling gently with the steady rhythm of his breathing and one hand is splayed over his stomach, his arm bent a little awkwardly because the couch was narrow and he had been surprisingly heavy when they set him down. Cassandra has even found him a blanket and pulled it about halfway up his torso, so Jake can just make out the white letters of the word _Anthill_ on the black shirt. The shirt that Jake had given him last week and which had made Ezekiel laugh so hard his tea came back up through his nose. He had put it on immediately and Jake had been rewarded with a kiss he could still feel an hour later, and with the promise that he could be the one to take it off again that night.

‘Great.’ Eve sits back, shoulders slumping in resignation. ‘Any volunteers for the exploding phone, then?’

Jake clears his throat. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

\---

_‘Have you ever… been with someone before?’ Jake asked quietly. They were sitting on the rooftop terrace of Ezekiel’s penthouse (and after Jake had gotten over the fact that the punk had a fucking_ penthouse, _he had to admit it had its benefits), the night sky stretching over them like diamond studded velvet. ‘Someone long term, I mean?’_

_Ezekiel was quiet for a moment, ruminating the question. ‘Not really,’ he replied slowly, his gaze looking at somewhere in the far distance. ‘Uhm. I’ve had a kind of… fling? With someone I met at Defcon a couple of years ago, but that didn’t work out.’_

_‘Another hacker?’ Jake asked, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile. ‘That must’ve been interesting.’_

_‘It was,’ Ezekiel said, relaxing into a smile as well. ‘He was interesting. And tall, and dark, and handsome and honestly, the things that bloke could do to the NSA’s servers… but yeah. As I said, didn’t work.’_

_Jake frowned. ‘Why not?’_

_‘Well,’ Ezekiel grinned, ‘you know my ego?’_

_‘What, that tiny little thing? Never knew it was there.’_

_‘Funny. Now, double that and put those two together in one room for about 24 hours.’_

_‘Jesus.’_

_‘Yeah.’_

_‘Any survivors?’_

_Ezekiel laughed. ‘Oh, we both lived. Eventually. Last I heard, he’s part of some kind of Robin Hood gang in Boston, of all places, so he’s doing fine.’_

_Jake laughed too, trying not to think too hard about tall dark handsome strangers seducing his thief. As long as they stayed in Boston, nice and far and all the way across the States, that would suit him just fine._

_‘What about you?’ Ezekiel asked as he settled back against Jake with a contented smile. ‘You had a cowgirl sweetheart back home?’_

_Jake hummed. ‘I got engaged once.’_

_‘Right. Pull the other one, mate. It’s got bells on.’_

_‘Not kidding, Jones. Planned it all out, got the ring, did the whole speech and getting on one knee thing and then she even said yes, so, you know. That definitely happened.’_

_‘What was her name?’ Ezekiel asked quietly. Jake couldn’t make out the expression on his face in the darkness, but there was a careful hand wrapping itself around Jake’s own and squeezing gently, so it didn’t even hurt that bad when he said: ‘Rachel.’_

_‘Oh, come on.’_

_‘No, for real. Rachel Martin, local town belle together with her sister. And it would’ve worked out great because my… my brother was dating her sister and, you know. Where I’m from, we like to keep things simple.’_

_Ezekiel huffed a laugh, but he also did not let go of Jake’s hand. ‘Right. And how_ simple _did that turn out to be, exactly?’_

_‘You know,’ Jake mused, because that was easier than answering the question outright, ‘I think I still have a scar from when she threw that ring back at me. Big diamond, you’d have loved it but it hurt like a bitch.’_

_The sound of Ezekiel’s laughter echoes across the rooftop. ‘Holy shit, cowboy. What’d you do to her?’_

_Jake had to laugh too, the sting of both the diamond and the heartbreak nowhere near as sharp as it used to be. ‘Told her I wasn’t plannin’ on moving to Kentucky with her so she could help her dad and her sister with the horses. She didn’t take that all too well, unfortunately.’_

_‘I can imagine,’ Ezekiel muttered, still shaking with suppressed giggles. ‘Fierce little thing, was she?’_

_‘Oh yes,’ Jake agreed, still grinning as well. ‘Hell in high heels.’_

_The night was quiet again, with only the clink of Jake’s beer bottle and the breathy hum of a short and sweet kiss to break the silence. But then Ezekiel drew back, biting his lip and looking at Jake with something that wasn’t quite worry, but wasn’t entirely happy either. ‘So, uhm. This might be a stupid question, but. If you once spurned your high school sweetheart and I once almost blacked out the entire East Coast just to show Alec that I could…’_

_Jake frowned. Ezekiel waved a hand. ‘… long story. But, if that happened, then. Uhm. Why… I mean, what makes you think this is gonna work out?’_

\---

Back then, on that rooftop, Jake didn’t have any other answer than ‘ _I don’t know. But_ _I really, really want it to.’_

And Ezekiel laughed again, and kissed him, and told him _‘Me too’_ in a hushed kind of tone, like he was admitting a secret he hadn’t even known himself. But now, as three faces watch him in slack-jawed shock and Jake still only has eyes for the peaceful face on the ratty pillow, he finds the other, the _right_ answer presenting itself clear as day. _Because I fucking love you, you pretentious little prick._

‘Stone,’ Eve says in a distant kind of voice. ‘You want to say that again, maybe? Because I could swear…’

Jake swallows. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he says again and it’s funny. He thought this. All of this. The coming forward but also the bone-deep, gut-wrenching, earth-shattering realization of _I really_ really _fucking love you, you asshole, I really fucking do and if that handsome hacker ever comes this way he can fuck right back off to Boston because you’re_ mine… he thought all of it would be more terrifying. He thought he wouldn’t be able to say anything or that he’d have to make up some kind of complicated story, find a ruse to get Eve and Cassandra and Jenkins out of the room while he pretended to go and find Ezekiel’s ‘mystery person’. Perhaps he even thought he could try and make them believe that the punk woke up all by himself, as if they’d ever buy that.

But it isn’t. It’s not terrifying at all. Instead it’s freedom and joy, soaring and freefalling while at the same time being tethered firmly by a gentle, golden-skinned hand with very nimble (and slightly sticky) fingers. ‘You guys… you guys go and finish the case, punch that bastard a couple more times and see if he hasn’t got any more magic jewelry hidden somewhere. I’ll… I’ll bring Jones back.’

He can’t help it: he’s smiling as he says it. He drags a hand over his face to try and hide it, but then there’s a squeaking noise from next to the couch and before Jake realizes it he has two arms full of Cassandra Cillian, hugging him so tight he can barely breathe. ‘Oh I knew it, I _knew_ it!’

Jake laughs, wrapping his arms around her and holding on to her just as tight as she squeals against his shoulder. ‘That Prado guide wasn’t enough of a giveaway for ya?’ he asks, laughing again as the answer comes out in even more high-pitched squeaks and a tiny fist punches him in the back in pretend dismay.

He looks over Cassandra’s shoulder at Eve, who is shaking her head at the two of them and doing a very poor job of hiding her own shock. And at Jenkins, who hasn’t moved or said a thing, and who is staring at the unconscious form of Ezekiel with a slightly bemused tilt of his head. Which probably meant he was shaken to his very core at the moment and Jake has to hide his face in Cassandra’s hair for a second to swallow his giddiness back down.

‘Come on,’ he says, once she’s done making sounds that only bats can hear. He squeezes her shoulders once more and then releases her, grinning when he sees damp blue eyes and a radiant smile so wide it has to hurt. ‘You go get that fucking asshole. And then you can come back here and murder me and Jones for keepin’ secrets, alright?’

Cassandra makes a sound that’s almost intelligible before darting out of the reading nook, only to turn around and dart back to tackle Jake from behind one more time so she can both kiss his cheek and promise him that: ‘You are both _so_ dead when I get back! _So_ dead!’

‘And if she doesn’t kill you, I will,’ Eve tells him. She gets up from where she was leaning against a book case and is favoring Jake with something not quite a glare, not quite a grin. ‘And if you two even _think_ about hurting each other, I will _definitely_ kill you. Understood?’

Jake salutes, snapping his heels together and then ducking away just in time before Baird’s pretend punch hits him. ‘Copy that, Colonel.’

She does get to ruffle his hair though, on her way out. ‘Seriously,’ she says, holding still and giving him a steely-eyed look. ‘Be careful with each other, alright? Both of you.’

Jake nods but before he can reply, Eve is gone and he is left with Jenkins. Who doesn’t even do or say anything except: ‘If you’d be so kind as to take Mr. Jones to my lab after he has woken, Mr. Stone, so we can make sure there will be no, ah, side effects, I would be very grateful.’

And with that, he vanishes. At a speed that has Jake blink a couple of times and that makes a couple of loose pages on one of the bookshelves flutter in his wake.

Jake is alone. With a comatose punk on the couch who hasn’t stirred since he was carried back in through the Back Door and who makes something in Jake’s gut twist and turn the longer he stays that way.

Time to do something about that.

He takes a breath, his giddiness all but gone as he moves towards the couch and sits himself down on the floor, his eyes level with Ezekiel’s face. He looks peaceful, almost innocent and Jake has to bite back a chuckle even as something in his chest tightens at the sight. ‘Hey Jonesy,’ he murmurs, reaching out to brush a couple of flyaway hairs off Ezekiel’s cheek. ‘You ready to wake up yet?’

No response, although there is the barest hint of a rustle behind him. Jake rolls his eyes and turns his head. ‘Cassie, you know Eve’s waiting for you, right?’

The rustling stops, followed by the sound of someone trying to sneak off in shoes that were not made for sneaking. Jake waits patiently, his hand still absentmindedly brushing over Ezekiel’s cheek until he is sure there are no more uninvited onlookers lurking in the shadows.

He turns back to his thief. Cups the back of his head and tilts it slightly before ducking his own head down and pressing the softest, most gentle kiss to Ezekiel’s lips.

‘Come back to me.’

Another kiss, less gentle and more urgent than the first.

‘Please.’

A third one, more gentle again and not to Ezekiel’s mouth, but lingering on his cheek.

‘Jonesy, you better wake up before Cassie starts digging into those brownies you… hey.’

‘Hey yourself, cowboy,’ Ezekiel rasps, owlishly blinking up at him in the low light. ‘What was that you said about brownies? ‘Cause those are mine and I actually _paid_ for them this time because you made me.’

Jake doesn’t reply. Instead he levers himself off the floor and onto the couch in one fluid motion, practically launching himself towards Ezekiel who squawks in protest as the full weight of his unbelievably relieved cowboy lands on top of him. ‘Oomph! Oi, what’s that about?’

It’s not until after Jake has maneuvered them both in such a way that he has Ezekiel completely wrapped up in his arms, face buried in the crook of Jake’s neck and his hair at the perfect height to keep dotting it with tiny kisses, that he can start explaining things more or less in detail. As he is talking, Ezekiel grows still, his arms coming around Jake’s back and holding on tight when Jake tells him about fairytales and their ideals, about the thunderclap realization he has come to (although not in so many words. Not yet), about Cassandra’s excitement (to which Ezekiel chuckles. ‘We are so dead, aren’t we?’ ‘Oh, yes we are.’) and Eve’s promise and Jenkins… being Jenkins and how things didn’t exactly go according to Jake’s plan, but. Here they are.

‘Here we are,’ Ezekiel murmurs into Jake’s shirt and Jake has to scrunch his eyes shut for a moment, burying his nose into Ezekiel’s hair and taking a deep breath that smells of expensive mint shampoo and home. ‘And we’re still okay? Cowboy? Even though… you know. Unless you’ve figured everything out in the past hour or so, then that’s great but…’

He trails off in favor of wriggling even closer to Jake’s chest. Jake squeezes him a little tighter as he presses a kiss to the top of his ear. ‘We’re okay,’ he says softly. ‘As long as you promise not to do this kind of thing too often, then I think we’ll be okay.’

‘Good,’ Ezekiel says, voice still drowsy as he settles in against Jake. ‘That’s okay then. Also, how long d’you reckon we can stay here before Jenkins comes looking for Cowboy Charming and his Sleeping Beauty?’

‘No idea,’ Jake replies, looking down on the dark head of his thief with a soft smile. ‘But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.’

\---

The answer, it turned out, was surprisingly long. Jake was not sure how long they stayed there, wrapped up in each other on an old and weathered couch that was a bit too narrow for comfort, but it was long enough for Ezekiel to rattle off as many Sleeping Beauty jokes as he could in the least amount of time. It was also long enough for Jake to ask about _the Prado, Jones, really?_ and finding out that museum dates were apparently going to be a thing. If he wanted them to be, at least, which was kind of like asking a fish if it would like to go for a swim.

‘Not tonight, though,’ Jake says when the low hum of the Back Door indicates the end of their peace and quiet. He shifts, slowly untangling himself from Ezekiel, who makes a displeased noise and a grabby motion before he resigns himself as well and sits up with the most jaw-cracking yawn Jake has ever seen. ‘I don’t see why not, cowboy. I just had a power nap, I’m all for a night of looking at three large naked ladies dancing around.’

‘That’s Rubens’ _Three Graces,’_ Jake says with a smile before standing up and offering Ezekiel a hand. ‘And nice try, but no. You are going to see Jenkins, and he is going give you some kind of foul potion to make sure you’re not gonna conk out on us again and then I’m going to take you home. You got that?’

He hoists Ezekiel up and would you know it, somehow the punk manages to aim just right so his mouth meets Jake’s at the end. Jake doesn’t complain; instead he revels in the feeling once again, of a warm mouth on his, gentle fingers kneading into his shoulders and hair while his own work-hardened hands find soft cotton and even softer skin underneath.

‘Home,’ Ezekiel says after they break apart, giving Jake one of those soft, secret smiles that Jake absolutely adores. ‘Home sounds good.’

Jake nods and wraps one arm around Ezekiel’s shoulder to guide him back towards the Annex. ‘Then home we’ll go, Jonesy.’

\---

And home they went.


End file.
